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Bergstein & Ullrich, LLP

This blog covers the civil rights opinions of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Sponsored by the law firm of Bergstein & Ullrich, LLP, New Paltz, N.Y. We can be reached at www.tbulaw.com. This blog should not be construed as offering legal advice.
Bergstein & Ullrich is a litigation firm formed in 2001. We concentrate in the areas of civil rights, employment rights and benefits, workplace harassment, police misconduct, First Amendment and appellate practice.
We are admitted to practice in the courts of the State of New York, the Southern, Eastern and Northern Districts of New York, the Second and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal and the United States Supreme Court.
This blog's author, Stephen Bergstein, has briefed or argued approximately 200 appeals in the State and Federal courts.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday
that Orange County violated the U.S. Constitution when it questioned a
5-year-old girl about secondhand child-abuse allegations without her
parents’ consent.

Judge Sidney H. Stein of the
Southern District of New York in Manhattan granted the girl’s motion for
summary judgment against the county. The case will go to trial in
January to determine damages, said Stephen Bergstein of the law firm of
Bergstein & Ullrich in Chester, which represents the plaintiffs.

Stein
also ruled the jury must determine whether the Goshen School District
violated the Constitution when it allowed county caseworkers to question
the girl at her school.

The lawsuit, filed in
2010 by the girl and her parents, Marie Condoluci and Steven Phillips,
arose when a state hotline received a call from Pastor Robin J. Hogle of
Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Thompson Ridge, who said parishioner
Thresa Falletta had concerns the parents were sexually abusing their
daughter. Hogle cited a photo of the child wearing a mermaid costume,
seen by Falletta on the family’s refrigerator, according to the suit.
Falletta previously worked as a babysitter for the family, according to
the lawsuit.

On the basis of this account, the
state hotline transmitted the report to Orange County Child Protective
Services. CPS then assigned the case to the Orange County Child Abuse
Investigation Unit.

While the investigators did
not believe the girl was in imminent danger, they questioned her in the
assistant principal’s office at her school, without notifying the
parents, Bergstein said. Investigators then searched the parents’ home
without their consent.

“The investigation into
these flimsy allegations was intrusive and totally inappropriate,”
Bergstein said. “The county had no basis to embarrass and humiliate the
family by pursuing these allegations, and it went over the line when it
took the child out of class in order to ask her embarrassing questions
about child abuse without her parents’ knowledge.”

Orange
County spokesman Justin Rodriguez said, “The county will review its
protocol based on the court’s decision. We strive to protect all
children who need our services. Our Social Services Department will
continue to act in the best interest of all children they serve.”